A heat gun or hot air gun is a device used to emit a stream of hot air. Superficially, a heat gun is similar in shape and construction to a hair dryer, though a heat gun runs at much higher temperatures. Heat guns are often found in physics, materials science, chemistry, engineering, and other types of laboratory or shop settings.
Heat guns can be used to dry and strip paint, apply heat shrink tubing, dry out damp wood, bend and weld plastic, soften adhesives, and thaw frozen pipes. They are also used in electronics to desolder circuit board components. They typically output air at temperatures ranging from 100-550° C. (200-1000° F.) with some hotter models running around 760° C. (1400° F.), although the temperature may vary depending on the application.
Some heat guns have a rest, so they can be activated and placed on a workbench, which frees the operator's hand. Heat guns can have nozzles which deflect their air for various purposes, such as concentrating the heat on one area.
In the prior art, when used to dry and strip paint, a heat gun is used to heat the paint as much as required to make it malleable and thereafter the paint is stripped off a painted surface with a separate paint scraper tool. One form of paint scraper is the classic putty knife, which typically has a stiff flat ended blade.
Gloves are generally worn during the heating process to protect the operator's hands and the scraping tool must be compatible with the heat gun so that it can resist higher temperatures. An operator heats a portion of a painted surface with the heat gun, and then scrapes the paint using the separate paint scraper. Use of the heat gun and the separate paint scraper requires the operator to switch the tools in his hands. For example, if the operator is right handed, then it is natural to want to operate the heat gun and the separate paint scraper with the same hand. This may require the operator to lay down one or the other of the tools, which means the paint stripping operation takes longer to perform.
It is also important to hold the heat gun at a stipulated distance away from the material, so that the heat gun is not so close as to burn the paint or too far away from the painted surface. Keeping the heat gun at a certain distance away from the painted surface is difficult, especially when switching between the heat gun and the separate paint stripper and can be tiring to the operator.
What is needed is a device that makes paint stripping easier to perform and that ensures that the heat gun is kept a certain distance away from the painted surface. The embodiments of the present disclosure answer these and other needs.